I have these two cute Peppered Corys (Corydoras paleatus) in my 23 gallon aquarium. Originally I got just the one, but I quickly saw how lonely he was getting. He would try and play with the zebra danios, but they would simply ignore him. So I added a second, and they have been best friends ever since. The original is slightly smaller and his name is Doctor Pepper, the second is a bit larger and is named Sergeant Pepper. Anyhow, I’ve been trying to figure out what to feed them, what they actually eat.

According to Wikipedia, “Corys are mostly bottom feeders, so they should be offered sinking pellets as well as supplements of live and frozen foods.” Having read this, I’ve bought special sinking catfish food pellets for them, and I supplement with freeze-dried whole foods (blood worms, brine shrimp.) Yet I’ve never seen them eat these things. The pellets are utterly ignored, until the snails find them. The freeze-dried foods never seem to reach the bottom, everyone else goes nuts for them.

So my two corys spend all their time scrunging around for food, and they don’t seem to be starving, but I can’t tell what exactly they’re eating. Sometimes they scrunge the glass walls, but according to several sources, corydoras don’t eat algae! The only thing I have definately seen them eat, is Sergeant Pepper once ate a tiny squished planorbid snail. The aquarium is infested with some species of planorbidae and consequently they frequently meet with ‘accidents’ that result in them becoming fishfood. I already knew the zebra danios ate them and now I know that the corys eat them too.

But other than this one tiny snail, what the heck are my corys eating?

It reminds me of one of those things from Star Trek. Triffles? I forget what they’re called. Yeah, the star trek things were fuzzy, this is more spindly. Ok maybe its more like a sea urchin. I don’t know. It’s not cute and cuddly looking, that’s for sure.

You really do eat them, though. It’s not a critter, it’s a kind of fruit.

It’s called a Rambutan and they grow in trees I think.

Once you peel off the freaky-looking shell, they’re sort of like a lychee inside – an oblong white fruit, with a big nut in the middle. It’s sweet, a bit juicy, a slightly exotic taste. Not as freaky as it looks. Fun to eat infront of people who don’t know WTF it is.

So there’s this show on the Discovery Channel about squid in the Sea of Cortez that have been attacking people, taking bites out of them.

The thing that really caught my attention was the sense of indignant outrage in the tone of the voice of one of the talking heads. It just sort of struck me. My first thought was, fair’s fair and we’ve probably eaten a hell of a lot more of them than they’ll ever even see of us.

I mean, we’re going around eating entire species out of existance. But when something has the gall to eat one of us, or even take a little bite, then it’s all outrage and shock and revenge against the “mindless killing machines”.

What the hell makes us so special? My policy is, if you don’t want to get eaten, don’t go where lurk things that can eat you. Stay clear of sharks, bears, big squids, and the rest. Further to that, have a little respect for the creatures you’re feasting on. You can’t go eating them like they’re nothing – or hauling them up by the thousands for others to eat – then get all morally superior when one tries to drown and eat you.